* Posts by Hegelworm Messerchmitt

12 publicly visible posts • joined 28 Mar 2008

So this is how that terrifying killer AI will end us... by pushing us down hospital wait lists?

Hegelworm Messerchmitt

Worse Case 1% - Isn't That 3000 Fails Per Month?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDgkmXAsvL8

The training set is obviously way too small (according to the article, it's only ingested what equates to a month's worth of data). Another big failing point of AI tends to be the lack of context (i.e. metadata), yet it shouldn't take much to cross-reference this with the patient's medical history, age, gender etc.

Apple granted patent for ebook page-turning

Hegelworm Messerchmitt

Flash Pageflip

I'm surprised nobody's mentioned the zillions of Flash pageflip APIs, scripts and extensions (which have been around for what must be nigh on 10 years). I'm sure the folks building and selling these will have something to say about their work being disregarded as prior art.

http://activeden.net/search?term=page+flip

BT's third Phorm trial starts tomorrow

Hegelworm Messerchmitt

SSL Red Herring?

Sure it's been brought up before, but I was just wondering how much (or little) it would take for Phorm to add another port to the profilers, e.g., 443 for SSL. Is this once again based upon their word alone? If so, it's a huge concern.

This is, after all, a former spyware company. One could be forgiven for thinking this might just be one huge cyberscam with BT itself and all their customers the victims.

Hegelworm Messerchmitt

I don't like...

Mondays. I want to shoot the whole day down.

This is so depressing. It's like standing by and watching an accident happen in slow motion and not being able to do a thing to warn the victims. Phuck Phorm. Again and again.

German developers forge Iron from Chrome

Hegelworm Messerchmitt

English too

Just to add that you can browse the SRWare site in English too - just click the little merkin flag icon in the top right.

Here's the URL to the English download page:

http://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron_download.php

Cheers.

Did the width move for you, darling?

Hegelworm Messerchmitt

Collapsible right DIV?

Can I have a collapsible div#right-col please? With a corresponding $_SESSION variable to remember that I don't want to see it again in the same browser session.

That would be super-duper and give us back the nice broadsheet-esque front page.

I suppose I'm pretty used to the new design already. Just miss the chunky-ness of the front page; a bit like going from a mountain bike to a racer. Speed is good though - I've been quite taken aback by just how fast the pages load now.

OMFG, what have you done?

Hegelworm Messerchmitt
Unhappy

Panache and Identity

EVERY time I've visited The Reg in the last couple of years I've got a little rush of excitement BECAUSE of the design of your front page - it was just so very very comforting, appealing and easy-to-read. That sensation has gone. Like Superman ripping open his shirt and revealing an egg-stained string vest.

Could you still serve up the old design if users clicked on a 'give me the old version' button? I imagine El Reg must be masters of separating data and design by now so perhaps this could be an option? We are special.

Cheers.

Twitter falls silent in the UK

Hegelworm Messerchmitt

Hidden Charges

Bulk SMS is not as cheap as it seems. Sure, it may look like 4p per SMS, but many operators charge something called a 'termination fee' - effectively a small multiplier fee from 1 through to 2.75. So your 4p message might actually cost you up to 11 pence.

And it's the achilles heel of all the start-ups that are trying to fill the niche. Personally, this kind of social networking doesn't really turn me on but I'm all for filling niece...er, niches.

Dead author's estate snatches child's domain

Hegelworm Messerchmitt
Unhappy

A tourniquet on web jugular?

One side of the coin shows a large estate wringing out the little man. To me, the other side of the coin shows the little man attempting to hold said estate to ransom by squatting. It's the coin, the financial interest, that's the problem.

However, it's a popular and highly addictive trend. I remember searching domains for a good half hour when the first Narnia film came out to see if any were available. Why? Because, as a creative type and web developer, I just couldn't resist the thought of furnishing my own little place in cyberspace with *my* take on the series of children's books. In a word, expression.

The web is carried by entrepreneurial creativity, buying, selling and promotion and it seems that WIPO, along with these law-mongerers are intent on cutting off everyone's nose by effectively restricting the growth of such trade.

Wouldn't it be a bore if every namesaked, trademarked and associated domain name was owned by the original source? Goodbye fansites, goodbye indie merchandising outfits, goodbye critic, blog and spoof sites.

Criminal record checks could hit over 14 million people

Hegelworm Messerchmitt

Holey Dragnet

As a peripatetic music and multimedia teacher I've currently got *three* identical enhanced CRB documents, each requested by borough councils in the *same* county. This suggests that there's still no centralised mechanism in place for the checking of an individual against a single record - essentially a huge dragnet full of gaping holes.

So even if you do have a clean, current CRB, there's no guarantee that a new employer will be satisfied with it, demanding you get another. At £40-£80 a pop, depending upon the channels you go through, Gov skeptics might see this as another revenue spinner. Although I believe volunteers are entitled to free checks.

More dirty old men grooming us for an ID-centric nation?

Seagate first with 1.5TB hard drives

Hegelworm Messerchmitt

Floppies

1.5 terabytes = 1,572,864 megabytes.

1,572,864 divided by 1.4 = 1,123,474.29 floppy disks.

Or 99.8 kilometers end-to-end.

That's 62 miles long.

Or 5,851 feet high stacked on top of each other.

That's 1.1 miles high.

Or a platform 12.6 kilometres square.

But you couldn't do moonwalks on it because the little silver sliders would catch on your socks.

Have a good weekend y'all.

The Guardian ditches Phorm

Hegelworm Messerchmitt

"Web publishers benefit from the system too"

Do they fuck.

I'm a web-publisher/developer and this system perhaps has even more negative implications for us lot than most. I undertake a fair bit of public sector web development, and, as I'm a freelancer, I do this from home. Should Phorm and VM collude on this, all of that private governmental data and any associated communication would be wide open to interception and analysis. A dedicated SSL for every domain just isn't practical.

And what's to say they're not opening other ports, SSL 443, FTP 21, 25 etc? Could this mean that even my lovingly crafted code runs the risk of being 'analysed' and 'profiled'? If so, the knock-on implications of this don't even bear thinking about; fending off hackers, spambots and script-kiddies is work enough without the threat of an adware overlord harvesting the bloody lot at a network level.

I phoned the Information Commissioner yesterday and tried to force a little more information on the polite lady there without sounding too reactionary. Needless to say she knew nothing of Phorm's past and said that since a case had already been opened, all other calls and complaints are, effectively, ignored. So it leaves you wondering what value any kind of voluminous public voice really has.

I presume we've all signed the petition here.

Cheers.